Structure Drawing at the Heart of Teaching Chemistry

Abstract

Chemistry is all about structures. There are myriads of structural representations that are required for the students to become familiar with when learning chemistry. Structural formula, skeletal formula, Lewis and resonance structures, three-dimensional representations are just a few examples of the drawing styles that should be readily interpreted by a chemistry student. In order to gain the necessary knowledge to understand and manipulate chemical structures, students must extensively solve problems with structural illustrations and practice drawing chemical structures themselves. Here we present Zosimos, an online chemistry educational tool with comprehensive structure-drawing capabilities that allows chemistry teachers to create real chemistry quizzes, share them with their students and get immediate feedback on their learning progress. 5th grade students at Kantonsschule Zug have been learning chemistry with Zosimos since September 2019 and this article also shares insights on how to implement this learning tool in a real classroom setting.